He knew little of the man, scarcely more than that he was Catherine's old lover, and that the two had parted because of some trivial disagreement; but he had once drawn from her the admission that she had been afraid of Black Heber. Saunders, who worked for a well-to-do cattle-breeding uncle, whom he was eventually to succeed in business, was made of a different stuff from the tall shepherd whose ways were in the hill; and though the two men belonged to the same sect they did not go to the same chapel, for Saunders worshipped in Llangarth, where he and his relation lived and drove their trade. Heber's looks suggested a rebellion against all with which the other held, and the independence that clothed him as a garment irked the richer man; for he had a mortifying certainty that if the other envied him at all, it was on Catherine's account alone. There was annoyance in the thought that Heber Moorhouse would not have exchanged his sheep and his life of exertion and hardship--the cold winter snow and starlight of the mountain, its burning, shadeless summer heats--for the advantages which had placed himself high in the consideration of Catherine's few friends. Catherine was an orphan and her lot in life that of a maidservant at a humble farm. She had caught Charles's affections in spite of every prejudice he possessed and the fact spoke well for the strength of his feelings. The minister was beginning the opening line of a hymn. His voice was not strong, but the first sharp note pierced the silence of the trees and threw the murmur of falling water into the background. The sound gathered volume as one and then another of the congregation struck in. Saunders alone was silent; he had a rich voice which agreed with his generous type of looks and he was fond of using it; but he stood dumb in his place as verse after verse rose and fell. It seemed to him as if everything--voices, prayers, the very trees and the air of the early autumn afternoon--was conspiring to make a show of the girl who was his own and who was set in front of these scores of eyes, conspicuous, with her bare ankles. As the last words of the hymn died out the minister stepped down into the water. It swirled round his middle, for he was a small man, and lapped against the stone sides of the pool; and the oddness of his appearance as he stood, fully dressed, in the confined space, with only the upper half of him visible, brought a smile to the lips of a few present to whom the sight was strange.